Estimated 1 455 tonnes of plastic floating in the Mediterranean

Ruiz-Orejón, L.F., Sardá, R., Ramis-Pujol, J. (2016). Floating plastic debris in the Central and Western Mediterranean Sea. Marine Environmental Research , 120: 136-144. DOI: 10.1016/j.marenvres.2016.08.001.

Abstract

In two sea voyages throughout the Mediterranean (2011 and 2013) that repeated the historical travels of Archduke Ludwig Salvator of Austria (1847–1915), 71 samples of floating plastic debris were obtained with a Manta trawl. Floating plastic was observed in all the sampled sites, with an average weight concentration of 579.3 g dw km−2 (maximum value of 9298.2 g dw km−2) and an average particle concentration of 147,500 items km−2 (the maximum concentration was 1,164,403 items km−2). The plastic size distribution showed microplastics (

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Taxonomy

• Macro debris
• Micro debris